This week I encountered a major inconvenient, even though my work with costumes was almost done, the budget came out being extremely expensive, and major cutbacks had to be made. This was obviously a concern because I knew that a lot of the fabrics with prints would probably have to be replaced with plain fabric, and in Kabuki prints are found everywhere. Eventually we were able to make some cutbacks but as I feared, involved replacing printed fabric with plain ones, and some by cutting back on sleeve lengths and little details. I don't think the outcome will be totally different from the last one I had pictured, but I do think it would've been much better as it previously was. Obviously resources are limited and since it is a school play we cant expect it to be the same as a real Kabuki play, and I guess that our approach isn't totally off-track. On our physical class on Friday with Pilar Nuñez, we kept exploring on how breathing leads to everything we do, and how the intake of air also means an intake of energy. Energy has to be like our breathing, we can have a lot of it but we have to learn to control it, not just let it out as fast as we can and not give it a purpose or definition. Starting an action is as important as finishing it, like breathing, we have to control it in order to give it a smooth ending, and not just run out of energy. In Kabuki there is a lot of contained energy that eventually reaches a climax and I think that it connects with what I previously mentioned about breathing and energy, because for it to be a climax in Kabuki there has to be contained energy that builds up, and to maintain this contained energy actors have to have control over their actions and performance. 

Is it necessary for there to be a build up of actions and energy to build a climax in a play? Or could the climax come first and then be the repercussion of it.

This week we had a special guest who joined us in our physical work on Friday, Pilar Nuñez, who is a Peruvian actress who used to perform in the theatre group "Cuatro tablas". She will work with us and teach us about our voices in acting. At first the class was a bit awkward, for we didn't know her very well (at all) and so it was a bit difficult to show her our voices, for as she explained later, the voice is the most intimate part of an actor, and its not easy to let it out in front of strangers at first. But as the class went along she explained to us a lot of practical things like for example how our pose showed if we were ready to react (which is done by bending our knees), and how the voice and our gaze can lead our body instead of going the other way round. She also talked about our mask, a mask that all actors have which separates us from our character, yet it transforms us completely, and how our face expressions and the direction of our eyes can create this mask that should be confident of itself, and once a certain action is done,  our mask cant fade away, it has to stay there. Which got me thinking about how some actors approach their characterization; because some actually try to immerse themselves in a character, to the point of actually becoming it and end up being affected too much by it. So being aware of a kind of "mask" is really important because if not we can end up damaging ourselves.She also told us that we shouldn't look at another direction or suddenly question ourselves about we just did after we perform an action, because confidence on what you do is crucially important in remaining in character. A very interesting exercise she showed us was to take our tongue out and open our mouth as much as we can, because we usually hide our tongue because we deem it as something quite intimate, and this way we would show no fear at all, and our mask would enable us to lose fear and be able to explore our voices fully.

Has anyone ever immersed him/herself so much into a character, that actually became it and lost their previous personality?

This week we worked hard on the play production, specially in terms of the completion of the costumes, and for the first time I rehearsed a section of one of my scenes as Akira Toriyama. When actually playing the character I felt a big relief because all of the techniques and theory I had been learning was finally put to practice. Obviously I still have to work on the character, not only the physicality but also on his voice. One of the things that make me feel more comfortable while playing the character is that almost all of the movements have a strict way of being performed, and while these movements can be bent slightly, it still gives me a very straightforward base from which to start, improvisation is almost not needed at all. While acting on a scene, I would usually just try and concentrate as much as I can, and imagine my character's reactions and feelings while i act, but now in Kabuki that method has to be over-written, because acting is not about empathy, but about physical precision and control, almost like a dance. So for the first time in almost all of my life I had to change the method by which I create my character and perform. As we saw on Ernst's Kabuki book, the Kabuki theatre is very different if not opposite to the representational theatre, while one tries to accurately depict real life and human emotion and behaviour, the other takes a more surrealistic approach and exploits the non-realistic to create visually attractive and  physically enduring performances. Come to think of it, it actually makes more sense to go and see something that is away from reality than to see something that is equal to it, because people have always been seeking entertainment when they need to escape their daily routines.

So what is the element in representational theatre that makes it work for an audience?

Last Tuesday I went to see the play "Pedro de Valdivia", about Chile's first Governor. I had an impression that, because the play was historical, it was going to be either a dramatic or a dull play. I was proven to be wrong. It was a comic approach to Pedro de Validivia's life as governor of Chile.

When the play started, the actors started telling a story while playing instruments and singing, and throughout the play there would be many of these musical bits. The actors were filled with energy, and the play was always on movement, due to a kind of slapstick comedy, it was a very basic and dynamic style of acting. The play told the story of how Pedro de Valdivia went to Chile after Pizarro gave him authority to conquer, and when Pizarro died, Pedro de Valdivia became governor of Chile, and how there were many unsuccessful campaigns against the Mapuche people, which were Chile's natives, which then after some years resulted in his death.

Even if the costumes didn't change, the roles did. At some points Pedro de Valdivia was played by the different actors, because someone else was narrating the story. Something very interesting was the use of the puppet to represent Pedro while the actor was performing the same movements on-stage, it created a nice effect. There were many transitions between characters, they had to adapt a multi-character story to a three man stage. In terms of the acting, it was quite good, as mentioned before the transitions between characters were all smooth, and in no part of the story did I confuse a character for another, thus they were well executed. The actions were quite big, as if it was directed to a much younger audience, child play alike, making everything really obvious and easy to understand. The comedy bits were all over the place, every once in a while a joke would emerge, and these little jokes started bringing the audience closer to the actors, as if the imaginary barrier became thinner, like when at the beginning a cellphone sound is played and an actor makes as if he's answering the phone.

Having read a little about Pedro de Valdivia and his campaigns, the story was far from comedic, there were bloody wars because of religious and cultural oppression, betrayal and suffering. Yet I still think the play was effective because it told an adapted, but not un-true version of the facts that happened.

Can one actor play many several characters without the use of a narrator or any aiding media like audio clips?